Staffing

Innovations

The State of Minnesota uses financial rewards and penalties to fund nursing home–initiated quality improvement projects through a competitive bidding process, leading to improvements in the quality of care.

A primary care medical home for patients with disabilities and complex, chronic medical conditions emphasizes patient engagement and care coordination among medical specialties and social service providers, leading to enhanced access to care, better self-management skills, more days of good health, fewer hospitalizations, and lower costs.

A nonprofit, community-based organization matches uninsured and underinsured patients with physicians, hospitals, and other providers who agree to serve them at reduced fees and provides various sources of support to both providers and patients, leading to enhanced access to care and fewer emergency department visits.

Master's-level social workers operating out of a centralized department support primary care and specialty clinic patients in dealing with psychosocial and environmental issues, leading to high levels of patient/caregiver and practitioner satisfaction, improvements in patients' well-being and self-management skills, and reductions in resource use.

Through a statewide telemedicine program, psychiatrists evaluate patients with mental health issues who present at rural hospital emergency departments, leading to reductions in wait times, inpatient admissions, and costs; increased attendance at followup visits; and high levels of patient and clinician satisfaction.

A safety net hospital employs a software application that uses electronic health record data and predictive modeling to identify and allocate scarce resources to high-risk patients, leading to fewer readmissions and lower costs.

A nonprofit organization in Baltimore provides programs and services to support at-risk women (particularly African Americans) throughout each stage of the childbearing cycle, leading to fewer deliveries of low- and very low–birthweight babies and associated cost savings.

A statewide health information exchange provides health plans and accountable care organizations with daily alerts on patients visiting the emergency department or being admitted to an inpatient facility, allowing them to take steps to curb use of these high-cost venues and replace them with lower-cost primary care visits.

A large health plan offered a 6-month program featuring culturally tailored educational classes and materials and the integration of culturally sensitive approaches into everyday care, leading to increased cultural sensitivity among staff, more engaged patients, and better health outcomes, and contributing (along with other programs) to the elimination of racial disparities.